A wash apparatus of the kind mentioned at the outset is used in a vehicle wash installation which may be a gantry-type wash installation or a wash line. The wash apparatus can be utilized as a side wash apparatus for cleaning the vehicle's side areas or as a “roof” wash apparatus with which top side areas of the vehicle and in particular the roof thereof can be cleaned.
In practice, the problem exists that vehicles can have different contours and that there are difficulties in cleaning vehicles of different contours with the same quality. For example, sports cars have a flat contour that is often severely convex towards the sides, sedans have a medium-high, trapezoidal contour and large-sized sedans and minibuses have a contour that is rather rectangular. For adapting the wash apparatus to the contour of the vehicle, EP 0 012 683 A1 proposes to provide the shaft with a joint so that there exist two sections of the shaft which are angularly oriented to each other. But this has a drawback in that the wash elements are omitted in the area of the joint and the vehicle is only inadequately cleaned there. Moreover, for providing and maintaining the angulation, the shaft needs to be supported on both sides thereof and this requires considerable material and manufacturing expenditure.
A further wash apparatus comprising a shaft that can be angled is described in EP 0 808 753 A1. The wash apparatus comprises a hollow shaft which is rotatably supported on a core arranged inside. The core can be angled at a joint. Different segments of the hollow shaft are coupled via end-face-side teeth. The wash apparatus as described in EP 0 808 753 A1 has the disadvantage of a complex construction which is expensive from a manufacturing standpoint. Furthermore, adapting the wash apparatus to the vehicle contour is only possible to a certain degree.
DE 10 2006 017 999 A1 describes a wash apparatus with contour adaptation to the vehicle. In this publication, it is proposed that the wash elements, in the rotating condition of the shaft, form a concave contour across their free ends which approximately corresponds to the convex contour of vehicles. The manufacture of this wash apparatus involves high costs because different wash elements need to be kept in stock and mounted for different axial sections along the rotation axis.
WO 2007/072524 A1 describes a fastening mechanism based on form-locking engagement for fastening wash elements to the shaft.
An object underlying the present invention is to provide a wash apparatus of the kind mentioned at the outset and a vehicle wash installation, wherein the wash apparatus makes it possible to adapt to the contour of a vehicle in order to achieve a better cleaning thereof.